Kira Obolensky News

Renowned for concocting wildly imaginative adventures, playwright Kira Obolensky and visual artist Irve Dell of Minneapolis join forces with Gas & Electric Arts, bringing fierce physicality and object theater together for a multi-sensory ride through the magical mesh of fiction and reality that reside in family stories.

New York's OBIE Award-winning Epic TheatreEnsemble (Zak Berkman, Melissa Friedman, Ron Russell, Founding Executive Directors) has announced its 9 th Anniversary Season of new works: the world premiere of Mahida's Extra Key To Heaven by Russell Davis, and the New York Premiere of Passion Play by Sarah Ruhl. Also scheduled is Shakespeare Remix MacBeth a collaboration with Epic's unrivaled After School Shakespeare Program at Chelsea High School.

Vassar & New York Stage and Film's Powerhouse Theater announces the cast for the first of three Mainstage productions of the 25th anniversary season: Ninety, by Joanna Murray-Smith, directed by Maria Mileaf, beginning performances June 30 and running through July 12, and new additions to the star-filled line-up for the 25th anniversary gala benefit, 'Silver Celebration under the Stars,' June 27.

The National Arts Club announced the recipients of its Kesselring Fellowship (formerly the Kesselring Award) supporting the work of extraordinary playwrights who have yet to achieve national recognition. An industry panel of writers, literary managers, actors, producers and directors and critics evaluated twenty-five finalists. In a rare move based on extraordinary merit, the 2009 panel and the National Arts Club choose to give out two lead awards rather than one. These two playwrights, Rajiv Joseph (Bengal Tiger at the Baghad Zoo, upcoming at the Mark Taper Forum) and David Adjmi (Stunning, upcoming at Lincoln Center 3) were awarded Kesselring Fellowships. Playwrights Jenny Schwartz and Tarrel Alvin McCraney were also named as Kesselring Honorees

Anna Bella Eema is a trailer-park odyssey about a precocious 10-year-old girl and her mother who live on the edge of extinction. As her home is threatened so a city can expand, Anna Bella breathes life into a girl made out of mud who catapults them onto a pulse-quickening rollercoaster ride filled with vampires, wild animals and police chases.

Anna Bella Eema is a trailer-park odyssey about a precocious 10-year-old girl and her mother who live on the edge of extinction. As her home is threatened so a city can expand, Anna Bella breathes life into a girl made out of mud who catapults them onto a pulse-quickening rollercoaster ride filled with vampires, wild animals and police chases. Crackling with the heat of the mother/daughter bond, this family's secrets and deepest instincts vividly remind us not only of how many in America are mistreated, silenced, and forgotten but also the tremendous power of their inner resources and resiliency.

Playwrights Horizons has announced twelve performers who will participate in the return of its unique benefit evening 'Stories on 5 Stories' on Monday, November 19.

Playwrights Harrison, Eno, Groff, Gardley to receive Kesselring Awards

Playwrights Horizons has announced it will present the return of its unique benefit evening Stories on 5 Stories Monday, November 19. The event will feature new works by seven of the theater's alumni writers.

Playwright Mark Schultz is the recipient of The National Arts Club's 2006 Kesselring Prize for Playwriting. The $15,000 prize is awarded annually to a playwright of exceptional promise.

Playwright Deb Margolin -- author of the plays 'Three Seconds in the Key,' 'Bringing the Fisherman Home' and 'Rock Scissors Paper' -- is the recipient of the $15,000 '2005 Kesselring Prize' for playwriting, it has been announced by O. Aldon James, president of The National Arts Club, which presents the Kesselring each year to an emerging American playwright. This year marks the 25th anniversary of the Kesselring Prize.

Geva Theatre Center (Mark Cuddy, Artistic Director) and Five Course Love Company LLC will present the lip-smacking new musical comedy Five Course Love with Book, Music & Lyrics by Gregg Coffin at the Minetta Lane Theatre, 18 Minetta Lane (between Sixth Avenue and MacDougal Street).

New plays often originate from monologues, and the Playwrights' Center of Minneapolis is the creative home for hundreds of playwrights whose work is produced throughout the country. Kristen Gandrow and Polly Carl work with these exciting dramatists each day, and they have collected a broad range of monologues by Center writers for you to perform and enjoy.